I recently visited the V&A’s latest architecture exhibition, Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence. It is a fascinating exploration of the way modernism was used as a symbol in two newly independent countries - India and Ghana. However, it is a terrible exploration of the architecture.

There is no real explanation of who its main profiled architects, Le Corbusier, Maxwell Fry or Jane Drew are; there is no real explanation of what modernism is; how it fits into the history of architectural styles; why it was ideally suited as a style for a newly independent nation; why it was unpopular in Britain; its main materials, details or tropes. There is no explanation of how the buildings profiled were used; lived in; whether they were loved or hated; or how they have aged.

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